MANILA: Four foreigners are believed to be among seven people who died yesterday when a fire razed a small hotel near a former US naval base in the Philippines, rescue officials said.
Based on the hotel’s guest list, three American men, a South Korean man, and two Filipinas had checked into rooms where seven bodies were later found, Olongapo city civil defence chief Angelito Layug said.
He said a seventh person, believed to be a Philippine citizen but not yet identified, was also killed. The pre-dawn blaze occurred in Dryden hotel in the northern port’s entertainment district, he said.
“This area has a fairly large population of retired American servicemen,” he said. They settled in and around Olongapo after the US military pulled out of the nearby Subic Naval Base in 1991, Layug added.
Carlo Elepong, an aide to Layug, described one of the victims as a man in his 80s, but the authorities declined to release the guest list.
City fire investigator Jose Borlagdatan said the hotel was a small building with barred windows, in a narrow street.
“It’s one of the most famous establishments in the area,” Olongapo Mayor James Gordon said. He said the cause of the blaze was not yet known, while the US embassy in Manila had no immediate comment. “We are still gathering information,” embassy spokeswoman Tina Malone said.
AFP
